Since them, I've received emails from both Dreamhost and Evernote alerting me that the email address i use for them was included in those that were compromised.It seems to me that these companies, and others that are doing similar, need to be congratulated on their pro-active response to another company being hacked. They have gone through the list of email addresses affected, matched to their customer list and prepared an email informing the user to change their password if it was the same as the one used for Adobe's website.

As I have no memory of signing up for Adobe, may be it was for the free photoshop.com site, or for a download, but didn't know which password i used. Which was a problem as therefore i had no way of knowing if i had used it elsewhere.(i use many, and yes, for low risk sites - those that do not contain information i care about - i sometimes use a set of passwords on more than one site).

lastpast helped with this https://lastpass.com/adobe/ not only do they confirm that your account was compromised, but also how many people use the same password, and email you your password hint (i didn't have one) and those used by others with the same password. It turns out 7 people used the same password as me. the hints from others were enough for me to work out which one it was. and luckily it is a very very very old one, not used by any site i have logged in to for the last year. and with reference to 7 others using the same, yes, a much weaker one than all the ones i use now.﻿

The number of tabs I have opened in Chrome at work has grown ever since I got a new PC (about a year a go). Some have probably stayed open every since, there as a reminder of something I need to look in to, or an idea I want to copy, or an issue I need to raise. I have probably around 100 tabs open in five or so windows.

I say 'have' I mean 'had'. Today closed Chrome and then accidentally declined to re-open the tabs I had open.

The feeling is one of frustration, not of the tabs I was working on, but of those I had forgotten what they were (perhaps there was something really essentially now lost), but also incredibly liberating: I now have a nice uncluttered desktop, and do not have dozens of tabs calling for my attention and making me feel guilty.

I imagine it is similar to finding your desk or inbox has been cleared. Appreciating the feeling of clarify, ability to focus, de-stressed while also worrying about what have you missed.

I subscribe to The Times online (why yes, I do may Murdoch's salary, thanks for pointing that out!), part of this means I get emails every so often for free screenings of films and discounts on books.

One such offer was William Boyd's book Waiting for Sunrise. "£2.99 Book of the Week

Just show your Times+ membership card to claim your WHSmith Book of the Week. This week you can buy Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd.

Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor, sits in the waiting room of the city's preeminent psychiatrist as he anxiously ponders the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis. When the enigmatic, intensely beautiful Hettie Bull walks in, Lysander is immediately drawn to her, unaware of how destructive the consequences of their subsequent affair will be. One year later, home in London, Lysander finds himself entangled in the dangerous web of wartime intelligence - a world of sex, scandal and spies that is slowly, steadily, permeating every corner of his life...

To claim your book worth £7.99 just show your Times+ membership card in a branch of WHSmith."

I liked Any Human Heart so thought I would go for this. However the book was no where to be seen in WH Smith. I actually spent quite some time in there looking for it, in case it was a a special stand of end of isle, the whole time there was no one to speak to, just a couple of Saturday-job staff at the tills with a very long queue. So I gave up

Now at home I see I can buy it on Amazon, without a special Times membership, for £3.85, 86p more. When I saw the email earlier this week, I had to make a mental note to look for it in town, flag the email so I could refer to the title when looking for it, make a trip in to WH Smith (which becomes even more hellish each time I step in there), find my Times+ card which I need for the offer, and waste too much time, when I could have just bought it online, from Tax evading Amazon for almost the same price.

looked out my window about an hour a go to see several fire engines in the road. They'd been their a while, yet oddly they all seemed fairly non rushed and there were people looking at from balconies of both the building opposite and ours (the two blocks of flats are the only ones near by).

I stood on my own balcony for a while, watching it develop, they could see me and the others doing the same. more fire engines turned up. and police, and a major incident van. the road was shut off.

After a while I went to see if i could find out what was going on, i met others, equally confused, while on the 3rd floor ( i think) a fireman came along. Someone asked what was going on, he said someone had reported a funny smell on this floor. He walked up to the first plant cupboard (there's one for each flat) and asked who would have keys, we said the caretaker.This felt a little odd, they must have been there 20 minutes, probably more, but though there were 20 plus outside, there was just one walking around the floor with the issue, and only now were they asking about accessing plant areas (often the cause of burning smells) and trying to find emergency contacts. Odder when you think emergency contacts were all available in the lobby and as a large building must have been registered with the fire brigade.

After this I slowly wandered back to my flat, again the number of vehicles had gone up. Apparently it was not safe to walk on the pavement the other side of the road, but fine to be in the building itself. Half the balconies had people on them. there was a truck with a massive crane/cherry picker. The top of it was as tall as the building, and with massive lights on top.

After a while longer, I decided this was getting silly and went down to the lobby, it was empty (which felt odd when it was the only way in and out of a building that was the center of such activity), a couple of fireman came in, again looking for a contact number. Admittedly they hadn't looked long, but I did point out the official notice board with all official documents, and emergency details in the middle. (it's about the only thing in the lobby). One wrote the number down on his hand. I know they have a job to do but noted I was blanked throughout, even when i answered their question where the contact number was, which they didn't ask at me, they never responded or even looked in my direction (I'm not really complaining about this, just noting)

I then went outside, and joined 4 others (the others I had seen in the building weren't there). It turns out once you are out you can't go it (well not unless you used the other side entrance) - I did want to enquire why it was not safe for me to go back in, yet i was fine in the lobby (where they didn't seem the least bit worried where i went), and directly above us were people standing on their balconies, and others, if you stood back a little, seen through the window, watching telly and at desks. It was fine to be inside, but not to go in. Which I guess makes sense in the 'blame culture' we live in.

They had connect pipes to a dry riser (dry risers allow them to get water up to other floors with ease) and also to a local water tap under the pavement, all understandable to be prepared in case there turned out to be a problem. There was an ambulance on standby as well, again understandable caution.

After 10 minutes or so, the 6 of us or so could go in, and join everyone else who never left the building. And slowly each fire engine went and the road re-opened.

It's obviously good to see all the different services take these things seriously and interesting to watch these things. but some aspects of it do seem odd. For example, it's a long building and all attention was down one end, where the lobby/entrance is, the other end was completely ignored, yet both lifts were in normal operation, while being in the area they were most concerned with, and they had clear fireman's switches (one can be also used as a fire lift, though it would only be useable via the fireman's control panel) and of course there is the odd situation where no effort was made at all to encourage us outside, let alone evacuate. Each time I spoke to a fireman while in the building i walked off after with no comment from them. I don't advocate evacuation for no reason, and i applaude not being over cautious for the sake of it, but it didn't quite add up to the large number of vehicles and major incident units, and not allowing anyone in. Finally, my understanding of modern fire regulations in new large buildings is that the fire service have plans and/or access keys and/or contact information, yet while i obviously can't say for sure I just didn't see any evidence of this.﻿

I'll try and keep this short. Since leaving University 13 years a go I've been getting fatter. And generally not very healthy. It would be fair to say I started running to reduce the beer belly.

Getting the runkeeper app was a key development; my endeavours went from occasionally trotting aimlessly for a little while (then feeling very smug for the next month or so before doing it again) - to actually trying to improve times, distance and improve on routes taken. Stats and Maps. Pure crack.

I did a couple of runs (10k) in 2011, and a half marathon in early 2012. This felt good, and it followed my simple logic that the further I run the more beer belly is burnt off. The day after the 2012 Brighton Marathon I signed up for it. Stupid Boy.

It turns out a Marathon is more than just two half marathons. Once you've got used the to distance of a half marathon, you can pretty much do it as required.

Marathons are different. Unless you are a freak (or 'athlete' as some people call them) your body can not store enough energy (carbs, glycogen) for a whole marathon, even with carb loading before hand. This is what they call hitting the wall. Walking or resting will make no difference, like a battery, if you are out of energy your stuffed.

As I've trained for the marathon, I've noticed this a lot, things get tougher soon after 14 or 15 miles. Every step is painful, a slight change is step (a curb, twisting your head to see if it is clear to cross a road) is painful. Stopping is painful. Starting again is almost impossible.

With the bad weather this year I've done a number of long runs in the dark, cold, rain and - above all - wind. It's oddly lonely, you can start running in rush hour and finish when people are going to bed. A number of times I've not reached my planned distance.

Most training plans suggest doing a few runs of about 20 miles up until two/three weeks before the marathon. This I have done, the last and furthest in particular was hard, I hit 20 miles some way from home but had to instantly stop, and then take tiny slow steps back to my flat (it was very cold, very wet, very windy, woe is me). How could I do 26 more?

Tomorrow I find out. I haven't been perfect, I haven't been out 6 times a week like many training plans suggest, and haven't worked out the exact amount of carbs I should be eating each day or anything like that. And I'm afraid right up until the last week I was eating and (plenty) drinking.

I want to finish this. I have no idea how i will do. If I can do 4hour 40 mins I will be happy (for reference I can do a half marathon in under 2 hours). These last two weeks have been odd, I feel like I've lost all i could do two weeks a go, I'm pretty sure tomorrow I will run a few miles and then want to stop with a stich.

interesting - but I would argue that 'read-only' is downtime :) I am currently trying to figure out how to have complex sql scripts running with no downtime (and that means no long locks too). It's tricky and maybe impossible without massive effort.﻿